Credit Crunch to boost cyber crime

Security experts are predicting that the economic downturn will result in more people turning to online crime, putting more and more internet users at risk.

Rising unemployment amongst a tech-savvy populace and relatively mild punitive measures for those caught have been blamed as reasons for this boost.

Some claim that any such spike will be particularly damaging since there companies and individuals really more and more on the internet to store data and personal information – meaning there are more targets than ever.

“Crime tends to rise when you have more unemployment,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure. “If you look in general, where the attacks are coming from you can find social reasons behind them. It’s not a technical problem, it’s social.”